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Laugh & Learn about graceful, and a dash of disgraceful, ageing from 3 women, passionate about their area in healthcare. Offering an open and nurturing environment for you to discuss natural skincare regimes & rituals to women of all ages, experience in-store skin care facial rituals & demos, experience Limelife No Nasties Makeup or have a mini makeover, and discuss natural ways to enhance features without botox & fillers.

Intermittent Fasting has become the new buzz word, 5:2, 16:8 - are you confused? I’m not surprised! In this week’s blog I explain what these terms mean and represent. Fasting is generally defined as: the abstinence from or limitation of food, drink or both. There are three main categories of fasting: time restricted fasting; intermittent fasting; and short term and prolonged or periodic fasting.

From a physiological and metabolic perspective, each type of fasting leads to different health effects, depending on the type and duration of the fast. Read on to find out more including one of my clients’ diary account of her personal experience of a 5 day Prolon plan (she writes really well and is worth the read!)

“I’m allergic to gluten and diary”, is a common thing I hear from both my clients and just generally in social circles. This whole area can be a very confusing topic, so, I am putting pen to paper and this blog post is designed to help you understand the difference between an allergic food reaction, food sensitivities or intolerances and whether you might benefit from testing. Here I explain the reactions occuring in each instance of a food allergy, sensitivity and intolerance followed by the testing reports I tend to use. 

The Gastrointestinal tract, or “gut”; as it is more commonly termed has may roles and mechanisms. When assessing clients that come to see me with functional digestive disorders, rather than focus on what specific disease they may or may not have, I endeavour to assess and restore normal function across all the digestive process, which is best broken down into 5 areas of function: Digestion & absorption; Immune function & Oral Tolerance; The Gut microbiome; The maintenance of an immune barrier; and The Nervous system of the gut.

In this post I focus on digestion and how important a thorough assessment is when working with IBS.

Painkillers like ibuprofen and paracetamol (also known as acetaminophen) and in increasing numbers, opioids, have become our go-to solutions for pain management. Opioids are often hailed as the holy grail in pain relief and management but come at a price - nausea, drowsiness, GI symptoms, especially constipation, addiction and abuse.  Many herbs and spices have anti-inflammatory properties that can provide pain relief which I want to share with you, but before I delve into that, we need to explore what inflammation is first.

Here I'm explaining how the Inflammatory pathway to pain plays out usually in 1 of 4 routes and by understanding these, we can then explore what natural compounds can we use to manage inflammation.

I initially saw a client in April 2018 who wanted to work with me to uncover root causes for her chronic eczema which was really quite pronounced on her face, her weight, and to reduce the increasing amount of time she was experiencing hives.

I wanted to share this with my community as an example of how taking a broader view and working to connect the dots can help to better optimize health and facilitate the body to come back to a place of balance. It takes time, and commitment though, this has been 18 months of work! 

The poor potato is often marked as being an unhealthy food that is high in starchy carbohydrates and therefore off the menu for those that want to lose weight or follow a lower glycemic load form of diet. However, while potatoes are high in easily digestible starch that can lead to blood sugar spikes, they are also high in resistant starch, especially when cooked and then cooled, and this has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity. Not to mention -  great for microbiome diversity. 

Find out the science behind resistant starch, how cooling a potato impacts the glycemic load (sugar load) of eating a potato and the differences between types of potato and how to cook them.

A popular theory of the pathophysiology of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is that it’s caused by bacteria in the colon moving up into the small intestine due to a faulty ileocecal valve (a valve that separates the distal (last) section of the small intestine, the ileum with the colon). A new study on one section of the small intestine, the jejunum, challenges that concept. The study found that the jejunum has its own unique microbiota, much more akin the oral microbiome. As a practitioner that takes a specialist interest in Gut health, this makes a great deal of sense to me, that we consider the oral microbiome far more. 

Read on to find out more about the oral microbiome, and Tips to Keep Your Oral Flora and Good Mouth Bacteria in Balance.

In the words of Debbie Harry…… “The tide is high” and with regards to SIBO the landscape of this condition is most certainly….  moving on, rather than holding on!  There have been a couple of areas that I have delved into recently, and wanted to take some time to explain.

This week's blog features everything from what is SIBO, symptoms, preventing SIBO occurring, followed by what can we do to aid the action of migrating motor complexes (MMC) & misconception of SIBO No 1. Read on to find out more...